Inside Chicago Cubs rookie Patrick Wisdom's improbable stretch of home run history
CHICAGO -- He's the backup to the backup, but Chicago Cubs third baseman Patrick Wisdom sure isn't playing like it. As the 29-year-old rookie preps for Sunday Night Baseball -- against the team that drafted him -- Wisdom has already accomplished more than most.
In his first 10 starts as a Cub, Wisdom hit eight home runs, tying Aristides Aquino for the most by any player in his first 10 games with a team since 1900.
He has lit the league -- and opposing pitchers -- on fire.
"The guy has seven pumps already and he hasn't been here that long," teammate Ian Happ said before Wisdom hit home run No. 8. "Some of us are looking at the board thinking, 'Shoot, he's been here for a minute -- we don't have that many.'
"If we can get it to Wisdom with guys on base, we'll be all right."
Wisdom has become that valuable for a team beset with injuries, which is why the 52nd pick of the 2012 draft by the St. Louis Cardinals is getting a chance in the first place. Former Rookie of the Year runner-up Matt Duffy was manning third base while former MVP at third Kris Bryant was roaming the outfield. But then Duffy went down with a back injury, opening the door for Wisdom.
Wisdom has been asked many times over the past couple of weeks to explain his success, after years of hanging around the edges of the majors. "Playing for a long time at the Triple-A level, and getting spurts at the major league level, it's definitely helped me ease my mind, not letting it [feel] bigger than the moment," Wisdom said. "There's another deck on the stadium and more cameras, but it's the same game."
Wisdom's journey began with the Cardinals, but after just 50 at-bats in 2018, they gave up on him. He hit .260 with four home runs, but it wasn't enough to keep him in the organization.
"From the Cardinals' perspective, it was the classic running out of time to provide that opportunity," Cardinals president John Mozeliak told ESPN on Friday. "With the way the rules are set up, you don't control the player forever."
So the Cardinals' loss became the Cubs' gain, but not before stops in Texas and Seattle, where, according to Wisdom, things didn't work out because of "performance-based" issues. In other words, he just didn't hit enough, at the right times, to warrant being kept around.
"Couldn't get it going," Wisdom said. "It was kind of a blessing in disguise."
That's when the Cubs came calling, three days after Wisdom was released from the Mariners in August 2019. They couldn't promise him a major league deal, so he flew under the radar in 2020. The coronavirus pandemic allowed for that.
"He was really good at the alternate site last year," Cubs president Jed Hoyer said. "In some ways, it was under-reported how many homers he hit there. He had an incredible hot streak last summer of hitting a lot of home runs."